...he was unable to express it too clearly, he recognized that natural price is "the center of repose, the central price to which the prices of all commodities are continually gravitating" (Smith 1776, 1: vii: 15). Nevertheless he differed from Smith on the subject of equilibrium. For Smith...

...of goods, and introduced his notion of natural price. The natural price of a commodity, Smith wrote, "is as it were, the central price, to which the prices of all commodities are continually gravitating," in spite of the constant changes and fluctuations in real market prices.1 Smith's notion of natural...

...In an unmistakably Newtonian passage Adam Smith summarizes these movements as follows: The natural price, therefore, is, as it were, the central price,...are continually gravitating. Different accidents may sometimes keep them suspended a good deal above it, and sometimes force them down even somewhat below...

...being sold at its natural price, or for exactly what it is "worth." In Smith's words, "The natural price, therefore, is, as it were, the central price...prices of all commodities are continually gravitating." Changes in supply and demand will cause the price of a commodity to rise and fall around the natural...

...the activity in the long run, Smith calls such a price the natural price. Thus "the natural price ... is, as it were, the central price to which the prices of all commodities are continually gravitating" (WN, 1: 65). It is also the lowest price that sellers would take under free competition rather than...

...was not directly concerned with the problem of equilibrium. For him the 'natural' (supply) price was 'as it were, the central price, to which the prices of all commodities are continually gravitating . . . whatever may be the obstacles which hinder them from settling in this center of repose and continuance,...

...its price will soon sink to their natural rate, and the whole price to its natural price. The natural price, therefore, is, as it were, the central price,...are continually gravitating. Different accidents may sometimes keep them suspended a good deal above it, and sometimes force them down even somewhat below...

...Newtonian mechanics to define the operation of the invisible hand. "The natural price," he argues, "is, as it were, the central price, to which the prices...are continually gravitating. Different accidents may sometimes keep them suspended a good deal above it, and sometimes force them down even somewhat below...

...it is the interest of all other people that it never should fall short of that demand. The natural price, therefore, is, as it were, the central price,...prices of all commodities are continually gravitating. The occasional and temporary fluctuations in the market price of any commodity fall chiefly upon those...

...connection with this adjustment mechanism that Smith used the famous 'gravitation' analogy: The natural price, therefore, is, as it were, the central price,...prices of all commodities are continually gravitating. [. . .] But though the market price of every particular commodity is in this manner continually gravitating,...